Dig Two Graves

by James, Harper

  ‘I didn’t get a chance to say thank you the other day.’

  He wasn’t sure what for, didn’t think she’d feel the same way after the questions he was going to ask her. Before that, there was another painful task he had to get out of the way.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘They’re concerned about the concussion. Apart from that she’s doing okay. They’ve got her pumped full of painkillers.’

  He felt like looking for a nurse, telling her to give Bella an extra strong dose, anesthetize her so that she didn’t remember to ask what he knew she would. And the same for him while they had the meds cabinet open.

  ‘Is she awake?’

  ‘Yes, but she’s a bit drowsy.’

  Her eyes were closed when he went in, chest rising and falling gently. He stood at the end of the bed and looked down at her. She was a mess. Her face was pale and sickly where it wasn’t bruised purple, a wide strip of her hair shaved off where they’d sewn up her scalp, her left arm in a cast. He was thinking of sneaking out again when she opened her eyes, smiled weakly at him. He worked a look onto his face like an annoyed parent.

  ‘I let you out of my sight for five minutes . . .’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh. It hurts too much.’

  He was tempted to say don’t worry about it, I come bearing mental anguish that will make you forget all about your physical pain.

  Then she asked him. He’d only been in the damn room for two minutes.

  ‘Have you heard anything about Liz?’

  He didn’t need to answer. His face took care of it for him. Faces are good like that. Her breath caught in her throat. She tried to sit up, then winced in pain, relaxed back into the pillows. Not that relax was in any way the right word. The pair of them were as good as humming with the tension. He swallowed hard, croaked out the only words that would come.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Was it bad?’

  He gave his face a break, let the silence answer that one for him. She closed her eyes again and he wished he could drop through a hole in the floor. Then she made him feel worse.

  ‘It’s not your fault.’

  Liar, liar, pants on fire.

  He didn’t know what to say. She let him off the hook before it got awkward.

  ‘I’m tired. We’ll speak again later.’

  Except she sounded like she hoped later never came.

  Blair was waiting for him outside.

  ‘You look like your dog just died.’

  He waved it off, said something about it feeling like a long day already. Then he suggested they go for a cup of coffee, hospitals not being known for serving strong liquor. They passed the chapel on the way to the cafeteria. She caught him looking at the door.

  ‘We can go in there instead if you like.’

  ‘If I thought there might be some divine inspiration lying around, I’d be on my knees in a flash.’

  The rest of the walk to the cafeteria passed in a less-than-comfortable silence. He figured she knew what was coming, was getting her thoughts together—where thoughts may or may not be another word for more lies and half-truths. As for him, he was glad they were in a hospital because his own head felt as if it was going to burst any second, his brains spraying all over the walls and ceiling, there was so much turmoil inside it.

  It was now clear that money wasn’t the motive. That left revenge. If there was any truth in what the fake Detective O’Brien had said, one potential candidate was walking beside him.

  Except he’d witnessed the way the two sisters had hugged. Blair had been facing him. He’d seen her face, swallowed a big lump in his throat himself. She’d have to be very good to pull that off if it was a calculated sham. Against that, she’d lied to him, or at least held back information.

  And if it wasn’t Blair, it had to be somebody else.

  Not just anybody, either. Somebody who harbored a grudge so bitter, so all-consuming, they’d been prepared to murder Bella’s friend Liz to get to her.

  One of the Bloodwells? Merritt or grandfather Gerald?

  Or somebody else altogether he’d never even heard of. Maybe somebody from Bella’s missing thirty years.

  Hence the feeling that if he saw a janitor, he’d tell him to get ready with the mop.

  But if he thought he’d be the one taking the initiative when they got settled at a table in the busy cafeteria, he was wrong.

  ‘Bella told me you were approached by a man pretending to be a detective from the Boston police. She said you beat him up.’

  It wasn’t the way he was expecting the conversation to go.

  ‘I didn’t really have any choice.’

  She held up her hand.

  ‘Don’t apologize. He had it coming. She said you’ve got a photograph.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  Thinking, surely you don’t want to see it?

  ‘Can I see it?’

  It was phrased as a request. He heard a command—let me see it.

  ‘You sure?’

  She nodded, extended her hand towards him. He pulled out his phone, found the image. Didn’t hand it over immediately.

  ‘You want to tell me why you want to see it?’

  ‘In case I see him hanging around.’

  It was a good, quick answer. It was also a lie. He gave her the phone all the same. She barely looked at it.

  ‘Can you send it to me?’

  There was no point asking why again. Not unless he wanted another lie back. She gave him her number and he sent it over.

  Something useful came out of the unusual request. She’d gotten them onto the subject of the bogus Detective O’Brien—what he’d been planning to do himself.

  ‘The fake cop told me an interesting story.’

  ‘Really?’

  Working hard at sounding nonchalant. Like they were two ordinary people having a coffee in a hospital cafeteria. But her hand trembled when she lifted her cup to her lips. She knew what was coming.

  ‘I’m sorry to bring this up . . .’

  He paused, waited for her to tell him not to worry, nothing was off limits if it helped Bella. An invitation to rip into her, in other words.

  ‘He said there were suspicious circumstances surrounding your husband’s suicide.’

  She was shaking her head already.

  ‘He also said your sister was suspected of being involved somehow, that the police wanted to interview her about it. And that’s why she disappeared.’

  She stared at him open-mouthed for a brief moment, then laughed in his face.

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Let me finish, tell you the problem I’ve got. We all know it’s not about the money. So it’s something else. Somebody’s got a grudge against her. They want revenge. Then I hear a story about her being involved in the death of your husband. What am I supposed to think?’

  He let her splutter a while. Then a strangled squeak.

  ‘You think it’s me?’

  He shrugged, a deliberately irritating gesture.

  ‘You’re hiring me for my nasty suspicious mind.’

  ‘I’ve never heard anything so absurd.’

  She looked around as if she was about to get up and leave, looking for the nearest exit. He put his hand on hers.

  ‘Of course I don’t think it’s you. But while you’re hiding things from me I might as well go over there’—he pointed at a table on the other side of the room where a man was devouring a slice of pie like he’d just been told he only had ten minutes to live—‘and accuse him. Or maybe her.’ He pointed at a pleasant-looking fat woman. ‘She looks the type to hold a grudge. Maybe Bella made a joke about her weight.’

  They stared at each other across the table a long moment. She pulled her hand out from under his.

  ‘I need to go to the ladies’ room. Don’t worry, I’m not going to run away.’

  He thought she had, she was away so long. Either she had a problem with her waterworks or she needed a long time to get her thoughts toge
ther. Then it came to him, a mini aha moment. She’d been back to Bella’s room to get the green light on telling him the truth. When she got back, she looked like a woman who’d made a difficult decision but was determined to see it through, a mix of relief and anxiety colliding in her features.

  ‘You’re right. It’s revenge. It’s my father-in-law, Gerald Bloodwell.’

  It looked for a moment like she wasn’t going to say any more. He resisted the urge to make a rolling gesture with his hand, keep it coming. Then she cleared her throat.

  ‘It’s because of something that happened thirty years ago. It was partly the reason Bella disappeared. She attacked Bloodwell.’ She raised her hand to ward off any potential objections. ‘It’s difficult to believe looking at her now, lying there in her hospital bed. But back then she was in the Marine Corps. It’s a family tradition that the eldest child joined the military. My father was in Korea from 1950 to 1953. Bella didn’t see why it should be any different just because she was a woman. It’s one of the reasons she was his favorite. She joined in 1985 when she was twenty-one, hoping to become the first woman in a combat role. It didn’t happen, of course. Women weren’t allowed to be in combat roles until 2016.

  ‘By the time she attacked Bloodwell she’d been in for five years. She was a Staff Sergeant at the Parris Island Recruit Depot. The women do the exact same training as the men. They hike the same number of miles with the same weight in their packs and all the rest of it. End result, you didn’t mess with my big sister.’

  Evan smiled with her, made an educated guess.

  ‘Except Bloodwell did.’

  ‘In a manner of speaking. You don’t need to know what he did, but Bella beat him up. She got a bit carried away. She busted his nose, knocked out a few teeth. Broke some of his fingers.’

  He shook his head in disbelief, pointed at his chest.

  ‘And she said I don’t mess around because of what I did to—’

  He stopped mid-sentence at the look on Blair’s face.

  You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

  ‘That’s not all. After she’d knocked him half unconscious, she poured a pint of whiskey down his throat. Then she dumped him in an alley behind a disgusting sleazy bar and called the police, told them she’d seen two drunks fighting. And she took his wallet. He spent the night in the drunk tank. He didn’t have any ID so when he tried to tell them what a big shot he was, they just laughed at him.’

  She was smiling at the memory. Something told him there was still more to come.

  ‘He was let out in the morning. Somebody’—she did the air quotes thing with her fingers—‘had tipped off the press. There was a big crowd of them waiting for him when they let him out. It was splashed over the front of all the papers. It was a huge embarrassment for him. And he couldn’t say anything about it. What would he say? My future daughter-in-law’s sister beat me up? She’s a big bad Marine. That would’ve made it even worse.’

  ‘It still doesn’t sound like something you’d try to kill somebody over.’

  ‘You don’t know Gerald Bloodwell. Besides, it wasn’t only his pride. His company lost a huge contract that he’d been on the verge of signing because of it. And that had a knock-on effect. Suddenly he was persona non grata. The company almost went under. It cost him millions, anyway. It’s been festering away ever since.’

  ‘It can’t have helped your relationship with him.’

  For a moment she looked as if she might be sick when he said your relationship. Then she recovered.

  ‘It didn’t. But it wasn’t great to start with. My father was his biggest business rival. The fact that I was marrying his son didn’t go down well.’

  He remembered Bella or Leon telling him about it. But he was getting the feeling that the perfectly reasonable and understandable explanation she was giving for the animosity was just a convenient cover story for more personal reasons underneath.

  Then he had a moment of all but divine inspiration as if he’d popped into the chapel after all.

  ‘Did all this happen immediately before your wedding?’

  She stared at him as if he had indeed floated down from heaven.

  ‘How on earth did you know that?’

  ‘Bloodwell isn’t in any of the wedding photographs. Either he wasn’t there at all or he didn’t want his busted-up face in all the pictures to remind him and the whole family for the rest of his life. Your son found the wedding albums when he was going through your father’s possessions. You need to tell him everything you’ve told me to stop his mind from inventing all kinds of crazy stuff. He thinks there’s a big conspiracy to keep him in the dark.’

  She was nodding before he finished speaking.

  ‘I’d already made up my mind to.’ She checked her watch. ‘In fact, I’m meeting him in half an hour.’

  Then she did something that surprised him. She got out her phone. At first, he thought she was simply about to confirm the arrangement. But she didn’t make a call or send a text. Instead she checked incoming text messages. It might have been to see if Merritt had sent a text to confirm or cancel their meeting, him being so busy working for his grandfather Bloodwell. Except he hadn’t heard her phone ping, not since he’d sent her the picture of the fake detective slumped in the toilet stall. She was double-checking to see if his text had arrived.

  Seemed Merritt was about to be told more than she’d just told him.

  In the meantime, he wasn’t going to let her go without asking what was on his mind.

  ‘What did Bloodwell do to make Bella attack him?’

  She’d been expecting the question. Who wouldn’t, even though she’d said earlier that he didn’t need to know? She saw a very obvious truth in his face. If she didn’t tell him, he’d ask Bella. Best it came from her.

  She kicked it off with a caveat.

  ‘I know it won’t sound like much, but he made some vile remarks. He accused her of being a lesbian, said that’s why she’d gone into the Marine Corps, into a man’s world. He said he’d bet she had bigger balls than my husband had. Talk about killing two birds with one stone. He managed to insult both of them with one nasty remark. He was always so horrible to Vance. Then he changed tack, started saying how she wouldn’t be able to hack it, they’d never let a woman into a combat role, even though he’d just said she was more of a man than his son.’ She paused, her mouth pinched, remembered anger and frustration rising easily to the surface after thirty years. ‘Bella wouldn’t have cared. But he threatened to tell them, said he’d pay some woman to prove it. I don’t know what it’s like now but back then homosexuality wasn’t tolerated in the Marine Corps.’

  He saw where the story was going, picked it up.

  ‘So she showed him how wrong he was about her not being able to make the grade, kicked his ass in a way he wouldn’t forget.’

  ‘Exactly. And because he’d threatened to ruin her career, get her thrown out, she tried to ruin his. That’s why she arranged for the press to be there when he was let out of the drunk tank.’

  He sipped the remains of his stone-cold coffee without noticing, his mind full of the problems that families like to bring down on themselves.

  ‘What made him accuse her of being a lesbian in the first place?’

  She shook her head wearily, not meeting his eyes. He waited. Then made another educated guess. It wasn’t a difficult one.

  ‘Bloodwell made advances towards her. And she rejected him.’

  ‘Close enough. And after that it spiraled out of control, almost to the point where nobody could remember how it all started.’

  It made sense. It also fit with Bella breaking his fingers. A harsh but effective warning—don’t touch—or a fitting punishment for having already done so.

  12

  Evan stayed at the hospital while Blair went off for her meeting with Merritt. He went back up to Bella’s room, nodded to the cop, stuck his head in the door. She was asleep. Or pretending to be. They had quite a conversation coming in the n
ear future. He didn’t blame her for wanting to put it off until she was feeling better. He pulled up a chair, sat on the other side of the door from the cop. He soon gave up trying to make conversation. The guy had a real cop’s dismissive attitude towards all things private—private security and private investigators in particular. From the way his nose turned up, Evan was tempted to ask him if he wanted him to call a nurse, tell her one of the patients had soiled themselves in their bed.

  Blair wasn’t away long. He was surprised Merritt wasn’t with her when she returned. He’d have thought he’d want to have a word with his kick-ass Aunty Bella the big bad Marine. Then again, he was close to Bloodwell, so maybe not. All part of the family fun and intrigue.

  He stayed outside while Blair went in to see her sister. He planned to discuss what she’d told him with Bella. But he had his reasons why he didn’t want Blair to be there when he did.

  When she came out of the room, he got his own back on the unfriendly cop in a small way.

  ‘Come back to the house,’ she said. ‘I’ll fix you something to eat. Then you can stay the night. I’m not having you spend the night on your own at some hotel.’

  He smiled at the cop, then pointed down the corridor, mouthed snack machine at him. Petty, but fun all the same.

  It sounded like Blair had deliberately raised her voice when she invited him to dinner and offered him a bed for the night. As if she was aware of the cop’s attitude and had wanted to demonstrate her allegiance to him.

  She told him the real reason as they went down in the elevator.

  ‘You might need an alibi.’

  Gerald Bloodwell lived a quarter mile from the Carlson Residence as the crow flies. Evan could easily have walked. However, he lacked a dog to give him a legitimate reason to be walking the streets in such an up-market neighborhood late at night—ignoring the fact that the sorts of dogs owned by most of the local residents tended to be wrapped up in a cashmere shawl and carried around in a designer handbag.

  Instead, they used Leon’s private car, a nondescript Toyota Camry. Leon dropped him on a gentle curve on Heath Street opposite twin stone pillars with lamps on top. There was a blue plaque fixed to the left-hand pillar with the house numbers. It also informed undesirables that the road between them was private and a dead end. Evan’s name wasn’t specifically mentioned on the plaque although he guessed that by the end of the night it might well be added along with his picture.